YS 2025-06 – Nine Rotation Preps for a Season of Redemption

[RonCo]

April 1, 2025:

It’s the morning of the Yellow Springs Nine’s opener against the visiting JL Atlantic champions Brooklyn Robins, and the club is gathering for a pre-season breakfast. The nerves are here, omnipresent and heavy, sitting on the group like thin coat of biscuit gravy. Everyone knows the story last year. Everyone who isn’t wearing a Nine uniform later today wonders if the team’s heart is in it. Everyone doubts.

Today’s starter will be talented lefty José Chávez, who throws a kick-ass heater and three other big-league pitches, and who won the opening day start with 13 scoreless innings in the spring. The team calls him ‘Dogface’ because during the game he looks like a dog defending a bone. He, like the rest of the rotation is considered very good, but suspect in their unprovenness.

Dieter Hartinger, for example, plays the part of “veteran presence.” He’ 35 and has been in the league for twelve years during which he’s won 129 games. He tossed a 3.70 ERA last year, and has (in the parlance of the game) learned to pitch rather than to throw. Hartinger is eating a three-egg omelet with greens and sausage and ham. He talks to Chávez briefly. As the spring started, many thought Hartinger was going to get the opening day assignment, but he’s happy to be #2. “Or anything, really, he says later. “After you’ve been around the game a little while you begin to understand what a privilege it is just to be here.”

The rest of the kiddie corp will consist of:

Hermenegildo ‘Mr. Dunn’ Padez, a 26-year-old lefty with a 6-year career record of 54-70, but with that scintillating 15-6, 3.37 mark hanging around him from when he was in Indy back three years ago. At 96 or 97 MPH, the kid can get it up there. He also throws five other solid pitches. Maybe hanging around Hartinger will help him, too, “learn to pitch.”

The fourth game, which will see the Nine host Vancouver, will feature 24-year-old Lorenzo Peña. Like the rest of the lefties, his fastball is nearing that 100 mark. Peña is eating a plate of grilled pineapple and a biscuit. He’s 6’2, and 195 pounds, and from the Dominican. He prides himself on being the best English speaker in his family. He was 8-6 last season, with a 2.68 ERAThis on a team that everyone was whispering was trying to lose. Apparently, though Lorenzo Peña didn’t get the memo.

Alberto Sánchez, a 24-year-old lefty, will round out the rotation. He throws 98 (get a pattern here? The Nine have guys who can all push it, push it hard). His 2.73 ERA last year was pretty good, but he only got 14 games. Some say the kid from Santiago could be the best of them all.

Today, though, the world waits to see what these guys will do. It’s not to much of an exaggeration to think that the way these five fare will go a long way toward whether the club can erase the stench of stigma that settled over the Nine in 2024. And as they are breakfasting with their teammates, they look ready. The rest of the world may not know how to categorize them, the rest of the world says the JL Mid-western is all about the guys in Omaha and Huntsville, but the five guys here look like they know something good is coming.

[agrudez]

Subject length limits suck.

You'll have an interesting rotation this year. 4 lefties will definitely be a tough matchup for my squad, in particular.